What do you make when you have a heap of chai syrup to use up and it's a holiday to remember Queen Elizabeth II, so you're in the mood to make a fancy cake? 

I found a recipe online here and have adapted it to make my own aromatic, spicy chai cake and it turned out delicious! 

Recipe below - enjoy! 

1/4 - 1/2 cup chai syrup

300g butter

2 cups caster sugar

6 eggs

2 cups self raising flour 

1tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cardamom

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground ginger

250g cream cheese, softened

150g butter, softened

1/4 cup brown sugar

4 cups icing sugar (sifted) 

2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 170°C and grease and line two 22cm cake tins. 

Measure out 1/2 cup chair syrup (or 1/4 cup and make up to half cup with water. If you don't have chai syrup, soak chai teabags in 1/2 cup of boiling water and set aside to cool. 

Beat the butter and sugar until thick and pale, then add the eggs, one at a time, beating well. Sift in the flour and spices and mix well to combine.

Add the chai syrup (or cooled chai tea with tea bag removed) to the batter, beating constantly. 

Divide the batter evenly between pans, spreading to even the surface, then bake for 45-50 mins until golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean. 

Cool cakes then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely. 

Beat the cream cheese, butter, brown sugar and icing sugar until smooth. Add ginger and cinnamon and beat to combine.

Ice cake and dust with ginger or cinnamon before serving. 

Enjoy! 

For years I've used a favourite fresh cheesecake base that I bought and added items to when making cheesecakes. It was quick and easy and tasted delicious. Most people thought it was a special recipe I made, but I usually disclosed my secret... It was a pre bought mix!

Then it happened... my favourite mix disappeared, right before Christmas time when I'd make multiple cheesecakes for family gatherings. I still haven't been able to find it, so assume it's been discontinued.

So here I am, re-discovering some of my favourite cheesecake recipes, starting with this over indulgent Mars Bar Cheesecake recipe that could easily be adapted to any type of chocolate bar or even flavour (just replace the mars bars and toppings with berries!).

Recipe link here. 

Another great cheesecake recipe here (Mini Oreo Cheesecakes). 

Enjoy!

For more delicious recipes visit here. 

Had some fun making toffee apples today with my youngest.👌🍏

The recipe we used is here. 

My second eldest son has just turned 18, and even though he's probably too old for novalty cakes, we decided to make him a fun one this year, because 18 is pretty massive... and our whole family still loves playing Mario Kart! 

This is such a simple cake to make and could easily be changed for any type of cake. All you need are figurines, or in our case Mario themed cars and a cake to ice! I also had the help of my hubby and future daughter on law, so when I say "I" below, it's actually one of us 3 doing the work! 😂👇

How to:

I baked my favourite chocolate cake recipe, but any cake (homemade or bought) would suffice. I then covered the cake in a thin layer of green butter icing and reserved the rest for piping later. 

To make the road I bought a packed of royal icing at my local supermarket and some black gel colouring. I kneaded the colouring into the bought icing (while wearing rubber gloves so I didn't stain my hands). This gave me the perfect grey road colour! We rolled the icing out, measured and cut a strip for the road and lay it over the cake and trimmed the excess off the edges. You could use any colour here for a variety of cake options - the world is your oyster! 

Once the road was in place, we piped the rest of the green butter cream icing around the road to look like grass, added the cars (with a bit of icing under each to help them stick) and also added a home made sign. 

I then made sure the cake was put in the fridge for a while to harden the icing. 

We loved how this cake turned out - it was so simple to make but still looked and tasted great! 

For more delicious recipes, visit here.

I love apple turnovers - but for some reason I've never bothered to make my own! Let me tell you right now, homemade apple turnovers are so much better than bought ones. Soooo good!

I've had some apples that have been sitting around for awhile and decided today to use them up rather than waste them. I've also had a couple of sheets of unused puff pastry sitting in the freezer for awhile now.  I realised I had the perfect ingredients for quick apple turnovers, a great after-school snack for the kids (or delicious dessert).

Ingredients
Stewed apples
2 sheets of puff pastry (makes 8 turnovers)
Icing sugar, milk & vanilla for glaze (optional)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees celsius.

To stew apples, peel & slice apples and simmer in a pot with a small amount of water, sugar and cinnamon until softened. Once cooked, thicken with a small amount of paste made from cornflour and water.

Lay your 2 sheets of puff pastry out to thaw and cut each square sheet into 4 smaller squares (so you have a total of 8 squares).

Once the stewed apple has cooled, place a heaped table spoon of your stewed apple in the centre, fold the pastry over to make a triangle shape and press the edges to seal your package. I use a fork on the edges.

Place on a lined oven tray and cook your parcels for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Glaze
Prepare your glaze while the turnovers cook. Mix 1 cup of icing sugar with 1 tablespoon of milk and a dash of vanilla.

Once your turnovers have cooked, leave to cool and then drizzle your glaze over the top and serve.


So delicious and quick and easy to make. If I can do it, you can!

Enjoy!

I love anything easy when it comes to recipes and these 2 ingredient bliss balls are exactly that. Added bonus is that they are sugar and gluten free! 

Simply take 2 cups of pitted dates and 2 cups of shredded or desiccated coconut and blend together in a food processor or blender.

Once blended well (and fine) roll teaspoons of the mixture in extra coconut and store.

So delicious and great for snacks, school lunchboxes etc!

For more delicious recipes visit here.

I love chocolate, and I love cake... but I also love making food that my gluten free family members can enjoy.

Below is a recent creation (adapted from a few fav recipes) that was rich, delicious and gluten free!

Enjoy.

Ingredients

250 grams butter

1 block of dark Whittakers chocolate (equivalent to around 225 or 250 grams)

1.5 cups sugar

1 cup cocoa plus extra for dusting afterwards

6 eggs

Method

Heat oven to moderate temperature and prepare a cake tin by greasing entire tin and lining base.  Melt chocolate and butter together, mix thoroughly and once smooth whisk in sugar, then eggs (one at a time), mixing well after each egg.  Add sifted cocoa powder and whisk well.

Pour batter into baking tin and bake 35-40 minutes (or until a skewer comes out with moist crumbs).

Cool cake before removing from pan, once removed, leave to cool completely and set.  Serve dusted with cocoa powder (delicious with whipped or pouring cream!).

For more delicious recipes visit here.

It's the middle of winter here in New Zealand!  We have had storms, colds & the flu and plenty of rain and along with that, piles of wet washing!  I stumbled across an article the other day that I had written for a parenting magazine about Seasons, and it reminded me that in every season there is good stuff.

So here is a list of the good stuff that has been happening around here lately (more for my record than anything else!)...

I found the most delicious recipe the other day!  Lentil and Spinach soup - so tasty, healthy and easy to make.  Perfect for this chilly weather at the moment.

Sometimes when my girls tell me their dreams, I know I can't make them happen... like the time my daughter wanted to grow up and be a penguin!  But sometimes they share dreams like wanting to eat a Big Mac one day, or going to the local cupcake shop, and you know you want to treat them just for fun (reminds me so much of what God it like!)!  We love our local Cuppacakes - so many delicious cupcakes to choose from and lovely seeing my girls so excited having their first sample.

So much to be thankful for - I've only just scratched the surface!

For more Loving/Lately/Thankful posts, click here.

I'm all for simple and easy baking recipes this time of year.  Although I love trying new recipes, there are a few tried and true recipes I love to make and have stashed away ready for visitors, give as gifts or take along to Christmas celebrations every year.

For your ease of access (and to assist my own lazy computer searching habits), I've listed some of my staple baking recipes for Christmas prep all in one spot.

My most favourite Christmas go-to recipes are listed blow.  Enjoy!

Peppermint Bark

Biscotti

Chocolate Truffles

Coconut Ice

Shortbread

Gingerbread Christmas Biscuits

Coconut Haystacks

Spicy Dutch Biscuits

For some reason I've had a fear of baking meringues and pavlovas most of my life.  I know for many of you, you whip up a bunch of meringues in a second and think nothing of it, but for those of you out there who share my irrational fear, I'm here to help.  Today I decided to face my fears and have a go at making meringues all by myself.

My Mum is the queen of Pavlovas.  If there is a Christmas celebration or birthday gathering, Mum will usually bring a pavlova, the classic Kiwi dish.  Her pavlova's are the best - super crunchy on the outside and a little bit soft and chewy on the inside and always smothered with whipped cream and fresh fruit.

I've only ever attempted to make a pavlova once, and it was pretty depressing.  I'm thinking I might need to conquer that fear one day, but first, lets focus on it's smaller cousin, the meringue!

While thinking of something quick and easy to make for dessert (that is also gluten free for a family member), I settled on meringues (with cream, strawberries and ice cream of course!).  As I gazed at the over priced packets of meringues at the supermarket yesterday, I decided that I needed to face my fears.

Here's the simple recipe I used, and it worked just fine!  You can make them as little or big as you like, and I used my piping bag to get a neat finish (so much easier than spooning them onto the tray).

Ingredients

4 egg whites

pinch salt

1 cup caster sugar

Method

Turn your oven to 120°C, and prepare your tray (line with baking paper).

Whisk your egg whites and salt until soft peaks form.  Slowly add the sugar (spoonful at a time) and continue to mix well until all the sugar has been added and mixed.

Once mixture is glossy and firm peaks have formed, spoon carefully onto baking trays (or use an icing bag to pipe the mixture onto the tray).

Before putting the tray in the oven, reduce the temperature to 90°C and bake for 1½ hours.  When the cooking time has finished, turn the oven off and leave until cool.

Store the meringues in an airtight container - or eat right away!

For more delicious recipes visit here.

It's that time of year here in New Zealand (middle of winter) when your lemon tree is laden with so many lemons that you don't know what to do with them.  You offer to give them to friends and family, but they too have lemons coming out their ears and politely decline your offer of lemony goodness.

I shared some of my favourite lemon recipes on facebook last week as I was making a couple of lemon loaves and some lemonade and was amazed at the response I got - so many friends and family were thankful for the delicious recipes they could use their lemons in.

So here you go friends, I thought I'd copy the links to some of my most favourite lemon recipes in one spot so that you can make and share with friends to your hearts content.

Let me know in the comments if you have a favourite lemon recipe (and share the link too!).

As the saying goes, when life gives you lemons...

Lemonade

I love this lemonade recipe!  It's so delicious with the lemon rinds included, and you can change the amount of sugar you add to your own personal taste.  Recipe here, underneath the Lemon Rind Biscuit one listed.

Lemon Rind Biscuits

These tasty biscuits are so nice and rather different from the usual biscuit flavour.  Recipe here.

Lemon Loaf

This is one of my most favourite lemon recipes!  My mum is known for making this one alot, and it's fun to use limes instead or with your lemons.  The sticky topping is delish.  Recipe here.

Lemon Honey

This would have to be one of my most favourite spreads!    Recipe here.

Lemon Yoghurt Cake

Something a bit different again, this Lemon Yoghurt cake is delicious!  Recipe here.

So there you go people!  Enjoy these lemony recipes and make something amazing out of all of those lemons!

For more delicious recipes visit here.

Ingredients

5 medium sized Tomatoes

6 or so Pickles

Half red onion (or brown)

1 Spring Onion

½ lemon

Chilli Sauce

Salt & Pepper

Method

This recipe is very flexible, so make to your own taste and use more or less ingredients than suggested if you prefer!  

Slice the tomatoes in half and remove the pulp (discard or reuse for something else) before chopping the remaining tomato.  Add to a bowl with the chopped pickles, half a red onion (finely chopped) and the chopped spring onion.

Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon, and 4 or more generous tablespoons of chilli sauce (I use mild sweet chilli sauce).  Season salt and pepper and mix together.

Serve immediately with corn chips or as a side to your meal.  Delicious!

For more delicious recipes visit here.